October 28, 2011

Shut Out by Kody Keplinger

Description:Most high school sports teams have rivalries with other schools. At Hamilton High, it's a civil war: the football team versus the soccer team. And for her part, Lissa is sick of it. Her quarterback boyfriend, Randy, is always ditching her to go pick a fight with the soccer team or to prank their locker room. And on three separate occasions Randy's car has been egged while he and Lissa were inside, making out. She is done competing with a bunch of sweaty boys for her own boyfriend's attention.

Lissa decides to end the rivalry once and for all: she and the other players' girlfriends go on a hookup strike. The boys won't get any action from them until the football and soccer teams make peace. What they don't count on is a new sort of rivalry: an impossible girls-against-boys showdown that hinges on who will cave to their libidos first. And Lissa never sees her own sexual tension with the leader of the boys, Cash Sterling, coming.

Inspired by Aristophanes' play Lysistrata, critically acclaimed author of The Duff (Designated Ugly Fat Friend) Kody Keplinger adds her own trademark humor in this fresh take on modern teenage romance, rivalry and sexuality

Epic Wins:

Lissa- She was a character trying to find her own power and control who slowly learns sometimes you have to let go. She was smart, strong, and in the nicest way possible a control freak.

Cash- He was never pushy and always seemed to care about Lissa. He helped her out in ways she didn't realized he did. He was really quite sweet.

For a book about a sex strike there was surprisingly no sex. I mean it came close to it and was talked of but never any actual sex.

Keplinger really brings forward some questions about why a who sleeps around is 'the man' but when a girl does that she is point blank a slut.

She also asks why do people put so much stress on if we choose to not have sex, why we are considered a prude but then and if we do have sex we are considered a slut. Further more why does it MATTER why we choose what we choose? Why do people care so much?

The writing was addicting, once you started you really couldn't stop as it pushed further into the heart of the story.

Though I had never heard of the play Lysistrata before this book, I still loved seeing how the basic plot was explained in the writing and through the writing. (See you learn something new everyday!)

There is tons of blushing between Cash and Lissa. I love this because it's kind of cute that they are all embarrassed about how they feel about the other.

Epic Fails:

Randy- He is like the reason WHY guys get a bad rap. Even from the beginning I couldn't stand how he would just up and leave Lissa, without even really listening.

Overall:A powerful story about love and life, and the difference between power and control.